Difficulty Level

I have to say that going into the new course, I expected my classes to be difficult, but it’s still managed to catch me by surprise. I guess that’s how it is, isn’t it? You can’t actually imagine the difficulty ahead of time. You can sort of guess, but the way it creeps up on you and the emotions that fester, well, it just doesn’t work. I suppose it has in one part to do with how hard it is to imagine emotions. I mean, seriously, I find it really difficult to imagine being really sad or angry when I’m not really sad or angry. Okay, maybe that’s just me and my deficient imagination.

I’ve just had a psychoanalytic film theory class which was really quite something. I mean, I liked it, so it was something. And it was difficult, so it was something. So. There. I don’t, as my other lecturer puts it, speak Lacanese, just dribs and drabs, but I imagine I’ll have to pick it up at some more advanced level now.

Love all my classes so far, though. They all seem like great topics with nice lecturers and nice people in the classes as well.

I was supposed to update the birthday post during the weekend, but some really strange things happened during the weekend. I’ll do it tomorrow or something. It is, however, going quite well. At least, better than I expected, though, to be fair, I wasn’t expecting all that much, so the preparations were almost bound to be a success.

Meanwhile, I have received good comments from people who have read my latest short story, meaning they enjoyed it, which is a relief mostly because I’ve never quite written a story like this one before and I was sure it was going to be a terrible attempt. But I guess this is some consolation, even if I win nothing. And I guess that’s really likely because I’ve read some really good Singaporean short fiction recently and I’m sure it’ll be the likes of them who will win something.

In any case, hello. Hope you had a good weekend.

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First week.

First week of school has been great so far. Like the two classes I’ve attended (there’s one more that starts on Monday), and made new friends, and all that. I suppose it has all been very normal and all very according-to-plan, which isn’t what I’m usually fond of, but this has worked out in a nice way. I am however slightly intimidated by the semester ahead. Looks like a lot of work. Looks like a lot, a lot of work. Well, better get started then.

I’ve been at work on my short story. It has a deadline because it’s for some competition that I’m submitting to. I don’t know how it’s going because I haven’t written a story like this before. I just hope to finish up with it soon, not that I’m in control, but I imagine it would be nice to get something out of the way. I’m undecided on the title. I’ve got two titles. I’ll probably ask a few kind readers to choose.

I’ve been updating the birthday post [here], and will do so over the weekend as well, I think.

Back to work. Back to work.

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Next week.

School begins next week. We battle anew.

It was a sobering feeling logging into IVLE again today. Those months sure went by quickly.

The prospect of returning to school is more than a little intimidating, mostly because it’s a whole new experience for me. I do sometimes imagine myself dying in a blaze of metaphorical fire, which is a more positive thought than it may at first seem. I mean, hey, better that than dying like a cigarette being stubbed out, right?

Brand new experience, brand new people, brand new subject matter (well, in a sense), brand new timings, brand new places, brand new brand new’s.

It doesn’t help that many of the uncertain things that I had to contend with at the start of the summer break are still uncertain. And more things have since cropped up, things that I’m not exactly at liberty to write about publicly, I think. (Well, it’s nothing serious, just slightly personal.)

I tried to take fewer classes so as to help with the adjustment to the new environment and all, but I do still get the feeling I’ll have a lot to do. Not to mention that I hope I manage all right.

Meanwhile, if you’re interested, there’s a Borders clearance sale at Expo this Friday through the weekend. I suppose it might be their very last one with the way things are going. I might drop by just to say farewell. I don’t have the money nor the space for too many new books.

(The library’s somewhere in the vicinity of 400 books, and my room’s not all that big.)

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Groovy

Recently, I’ve become quite interested in the act of performance. I’ve been watching plenty of concert videos (some new and some old favourites) and a common thread running through them is that the performances allow me to understand the music better. When artists make a direct connection with their art and that connection manifests physically via performance, it also helps you to understand their work in a broader way. I often wonder if this has implications for writing. It’s certainly not a straightforward one, but I figure that the abstract something that I feel here will translate in some way to my own work.

I think I’m getting back into the groove of writing again as well. Sure, I don’t have much to show for it, but I do have a title and a title’s important. I’m working on a short story with a deadline. I only added three or four hundred words (to the existing two hundred) over the past couple of days, but I have that title and it makes me think that I have my direction as well. I know where I’m going with this and that’s been missing for the very lengthy amount of time that this story has been gestating. With some luck, it’ll show up over the next couple of weeks. I need to send it in soon.

My textbooks arrived earlier today. I’m going to get started. School begins next week and I better get to work. I’m going to begin with Hamlet.

I have a dental appointment tomorrow. I uhhh let’s just say I strongly dislike dental appointments. I don’t have an outright fear of them, but I really dislike them. I think almost half of it is what you always hear of: the sensation of almost-pain, the machinery, the sounds, the smell of the gloves, et cetera. The other almost-half is the fear of letting someone down, because anything that happens to your teeth is your fault. Guilt complex. I have that. There are other minor contributing factors as well.

Also, it is the end of one July and the beginning of another (Lunar). It’s also the beginning of August. Flip your calendars!

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Buy these.

I need to buy things. Or want to. The line between them is quite thin sometimes. For this post, let’s just pretend that it’s “want”.

I want to buy an autoharp. A good one. Does anyone know where I can find a good autoharp in Singapore?

I want to buy a chess set. I have no idea what sort of chess set I want, but I do know that I’ll recognise it when I see it. It’s that sort of thing.

I want to buy a typewriter. I’ve wanted to for ages. It’s just never happened. This is somewhat a good thing because it means I don’t yet have to worry about where to put it.

I want to buy a computer. I think it will come in useful in the coming months, what with school and work and all that. That said, it always seems like that before you actually buy a computer, doesn’t it?

I want to buy a record player. It is the main thing keeping me from starting an LP collection.

I want to buy a nice personal tea-making device. That makes it sound really fancy, but I just mean a teapot or a cup with the associated technological contraptions.

All this, of course, on top of basic survival spending and the other usual expenses (books, music, shows, and other products that I fancy). Also, I’m saving up for two things: travelling, and a rainy day.

I don’t expect to see more than one of these items showing up in the house in the next six months. In fact, it’s probably more likely that I’ll dither about and not buy anything until the 2012 rolls around, and then I’ll tell you all about this again.

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Clumsy at it.

I drafted this whole blog post just now and it ran about 400 words before I stopped. It was about school, about change, about age and aging, and about other silly things. It was really bad. I deleted it.

I think part of it has to do with being away from this for so long. All my fault, of course. But it does feel awkward trying to write up a quick post again. The words stumble out, the sentences are clumsy, and the topics are bland or trite or some blend of both.

I hope this doesn’t last. I hope it’s just a rust thing and that I’ll be able to commit to writing posts properly again soon. I don’t know.

Another possibility that strikes me is that this might not be for me any longer. I’ve run a personal blog for more than five years. Maybe six, approaching seven, even. The older versions don’t exist any longer, but I’ve been at this for a while. For a long time, I’ve considered–and I still consider–the idea that my approach to blogging might not be the best, that I’d run out of steam or things to say, that I’d just be really bad at sticking with it. But I did, kind of. There were always periods of greater and lesser motivation, but I stuck with it.

But what I’m getting at, however, is a possibility that I missed. Change. The world around us is changing (of course), my life is changing (whether it be new challenges, new worries, or new happinesses), and even I’ve changed much more than I could ever have imagined. Naturally, one would expect that my relationship with and perspectives on blogging have changed as well. My approach to it, however, has stayed pretty much the same through the years. Maybe it shouldn’t.

Who knows! We’ll see what happens in the next couple of months, and maybe we’ll have a better idea then.

Meanwhile, the charitable gamers among you might want to know that there is a third Humble Indie Bundle. Show your support! [via Humble Indie Bundle]

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Really back. Promise.

Yes, I know I’ve zipped in and out of here all too infrequently in the past month or so. This isn’t about to become a graveyard, though. I just did a lot of travelling (Europe, as you know, then Hong Kong, and more recently, Korea), but I’m back for good and hope to get things back up and running again in the foreseeable future.

Don’t take this as a complaint, but it hasn’t helped that I’ve been besieged by a bunch of different commitments. That’s all clearing up now, and I’m glad to be going back to my work (well, I haven’t been at it yet but I can feel it coming) and also to be back here. It also means that school is starting again, and with it a whole new door of opportunity and adventure opens. Yes, that sounds really goofy, but it’s true in the sense that it’s a time of big change and I’m quite committed to not taking it passively. That is, I’m going to try to make the most out of it, and fingers crossed, things will be great.

So, just a brief hello again. It’s nice to be back.

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The Unadventurous Adventures of Daryl L.

Oh hello.

My photos from Europe and Hong Kong are up.

Here are a very select few.

Big Ben:

At the Emirates Stadium:

Parking my TARDIS in London:

View of the Eiffel Tower:

Saying hi to an old friend:

Here’s the Louvre:

My very first Goya’s:

And finally…

Meanwhile, you can go over to flickr for the photos. [Europe] [Hong Kong] Many more over there.

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The English Channel

I’ve been back in Singapore since Thursday. Things have been okay, and the days have been busier than I wanted them to be, and not with the things I had intended either. I’ve spent most of my time working on the photographs. I’m done with processing them and am in the middle of uploading them right now. I doubt I’ll be able to complete the uploading today (I kept about a thousand photos), but I’ll do my best.

I quite enjoyed myself over there. I went to London, Lyon, and Paris. I enjoyed Lyon for the people, Paris for the art, and London was, well, London was just my kind of city. It was cosmopolitan, bustling, and even the bad weather agreed with me somewhat. So, while it’s not fair to compare them, if I was forced to, London was my favourite stop, and I hope to be back there again some time soon. Not too soon, of course, with the Olympics coming up.

In London, I ate a proper fish and chips (it was huge), visited Shakespeare’s Globe, and saw a TARDIS. In Lyon, I chanced upon the James Joyce Pub, bought an Alphaville postcard, and visited wonderful people. In Paris, I saw my first Goya, ate my first snails, and was surprised at the lack of tourist merchandise.

Books and coins have made up the bulk of my personal souvenirs. Highlights include a lovely Folio edition of Macbeth from the Globe and a couple of beautiful coin/medals from Paris.

It was good there. It’s also good to be back.

My administrative obligations are starting to clear up, I think. I believe I’ll be able to get back to writing soon. I completed a short story recently, and–out of certain requirements–have to do another one, though the deadline isn’t that imminent. That gives me a little bit of room to look at my manuscript again. There is also the looming shadow of school. I’m completing the last of the registration procedures, though I’ll only be really done by mid-July.

In the meantime, hello again. I’ll be putting up all the photos over the next few days and will be ringing in with the links next time. Meanwhile, it’s time to write and read again.

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Gone Fishing

I’ll be away on holiday for the next two or so, leaving my parents and cat back here to hold the fort and defend the island against aliens from outers space. Meanwhile, try not to mess up the place. Business as usual in a couple of weeks, so, see you then!

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